Monday, February 16, 2009
76% of Young Lawyers Are Happy With Their Career Decision
The American Bar Foundation’s After the J.D. study of 4,160 individuals who became lawyers in 2000 reports that 76% are either extremely or moderately satisfied with their decision to become an attorney, based on interviews conducted in 2007. One wonders what the the result of the survey would be now. (Hat Tip: ABA Journal.)
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/02/76-of-young-lawyers-are-happy-with-their-career-decision.html
Comments
"Each year, the law schools produce more legal illiterates."
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Glib, but meaningless, as was "allows such ignorance . . ." What ignorance? If you walk into law school possessing a great deal of knowledge, you leave with all of that knowledge PLUS much knowledge about the law. If you walk in as a blank slate, you walk out with knowledge of the law.
We're a society based on laws, not on your individual conclusions and opinions as to what "should be." We're also a society with a pretty big bucketful of laws, covering every conceivable subject. The value of people who know how to find and interpret those laws for others is high.
The other choice involves having to listen to and obey people who use phrases such as "the law schools produce more legal illiterates" if those people happen to be bigger than you, or if they're better armed. I'll take the rule of law, thanks.
Posted by: bobby b | Feb 16, 2009 4:32:29 PM
Of course they were happy. What other profession allows such ignorance to produce such a bloated income? Each year, the medical schools produce better-trained doctors. Each year, the law schools produce more legal illiterates. In California, they've been dumbing down entrance requirements, scholastic achievent requirements, and bar examination requirements since about 1980. Law school graduates now have a hefty knowledge of social welfare theory, and a pitiful knowledge of the law. The really successful lawyers are those who chose to go into finance and tort lawyers who learned how to sniff out deep pockets. And now they will pay the price of their ignorance. Maybe this recession will have some positive affect on the law schools, but with the non-publishing former editor of the Harvard Law Review in the White House, I seriously doubt it. In fact, having future lawyers buy their law degress isn't a half-bad idea. At least those buying them would have some idea of how business is necessary for lawyers to thrive in a healthy economy.
Posted by: LawhawkSF | Feb 16, 2009 1:22:47 PM
Wouldn't a more telling statistic be what % of people who went to law school are happy with that decision? I'd expect that number to be somewhat lower. What % of law school grads go on to become attorneys?
Posted by: Brian Hollar | Feb 16, 2009 10:48:52 PM